While ferocious anti-capitalists might have fantasies of seeing the entire fashion industry simply vanish,
Dov Charney is acting on other visions for improving the world. The founder and senior partner of the "Sweatshop Free"
American Apparel engages in all manner of unconventional activity, such as paying factory workers fair wages and providing
them with on-site health support, English classes, yoga workouts and massages. Making mass quantities of blank t-shirts,
baby clothes and women's undergarments in a worker-friendly environment has led not only to increased productivity but
to an increase in interest and sales — to the tune of $75 million, according to Charney, for 2003. Charney has found that
paying close attention to quality and technical design, avoiding off-shore labor and treating his workers with respect
allows him to create a superior product as well as a way to demonstrate that exploitation isn't required for profit, even
in the US. Turning the conventional means of apparel manufacturing on its ear, he sees it all as part of a larger
generational shift in behavior and philosophy. "Boomers are at the checkout and the next generation is about to make big
changes," he says. "We are in a generational power shift in which world values are changing ­ we're moving into an age of
substance." We can only hope so. www.res.com